


Infection

by aperture_living



Category: Naruto
Genre: Drabble, Drama, M/M, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-16
Updated: 2013-07-16
Packaged: 2017-12-20 09:33:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/885707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aperture_living/pseuds/aperture_living
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Growing up, he had no one to tell him what love was really like.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Infection

Growing up, he had no one to tell him what love was really like. People didn’t think to talk about it without being prompted, and Naruto hadn’t thought to ask, hadn’t thought to bring it up to Iruka over ramen or Kakashi after training. Lost, he turned to dusty old tomes, legends long past, but they were boring, non-specific, and sometimes he fell asleep halfway through them. Books held fairy tales of sacred holy kisses and promises of Happily Ever Afters, but he was pretty sure that those things didn’t feel like a fist through his chest, decimating a lung and shattering in betrayal. 

And if it did, well, he didn’t understand what the big fucking deal was. _Let them have it_ , he thought as he laid in a hospital bed, counting the rotations of a lazy fan overhead. _I don’t want it.  
_  
But then Sakura came with the same look in her eyes that he had before he lost himself, before he lost consciousness, and he wondered if love was something a person could just ignore. It bled like a wound, then grew infected and septic, rotting out the rational senses, leaving only need, leaving only that emptiness. Even if he wanted to say, _Let them have it_. Even if he wanted to scream, _Explain what the big fucking deal is!_

His heart was gangrene.

But by then, a few years later, when he was done training and he was staring up the length of rock and determination and regret and he knew it, he knew it when he ran, he knew what the big fucking deal was and there was nothing as simple as a magic kiss to fix a lifetime of pain. He knew it would take hard work, but it had to be both sides, it had to be him, he had to be willing. 

Sasuke spared his life on a whim, he said. He didn’t believe it, but his mind did. His heart still reached for a Happily Ever After.   
_  
Let them have it._

_I can’t give up._  
  
Now they stood on the battlefield and he couldn’t tell which side he should be leaning towards. His chest still ached where Sasuke had drilled his fist, but that was years ago, that was in infancy when he still didn’t understand what love was. That was when no one told him, but he figured it out on his own through years of work, of loss, of suffering. 

The infection of love reared its ugly head the second he stepped on the war-torn ground, but Naruto couldn’t say anything. Wouldn’t. Not here, not in front of the enemy, not in front of the eyes that glared at the traitor turned savoir. 

_Let me keep it._

They would talk after this war. They would talk, and he would save Sasuke’s life as many times as it took if only so they could. And he would tell him that love was work, that love was suffering, that love was determination and no happy endings, that love was family. He would tell him that love was an illness but a medicine, too, an antibiotic for the ache that raged.

He would tell him that love was home, not a village, but home. 

He would tell him everything.

When it was over.


End file.
